Mlynn

I am having a long weekend from work. Don't have to go back until tuesday....but I find myself over this weekend having major anxiety over work related things. First of all I feel like 1. I am moving to fast and 2 Not moving fast enough. I am already looking at apartments - thinking of making an arangement to rent the apartment above the building that my boss owns and I work out of. I have to catch myself - and I think woah. I have been in this job for a week or so and already I am entertaining the thought of moving into my bosses (vacant) apartment? What the hell am I thinking? Not to mention that I have quickly developed personal friendships/work relationships to my co-workers and I have already reveled too much of my ACOA issues with a co-worker. She is a social worker by profession(she holds another full time career other then her part time "fun" job) - and we just got into a long discussion which I felt was a good thing at the time - but which I absalutley panic'd over the next day. How can I have revealed so much of myself - and so many negative things about myself (including the self-sabagote in previous employments) to a stranger? Especially things which may be relayed to my employer and make me look like a bad employee(past work self sabatoges exc.).

I am just starting to like this job - and all the pressure is starting to hit me like a Mac Truck. I have to be perfect or I won't be able to keep the job. I can't make a mistake. I'm going to be destined to repeat the old same bad habits. I won't be able to break the cycle this time. I am living under constant crippling pressure to be always perfect and never flounder - out of fear of loosing not only this new job - but all the hope that it is giving me for my future and getting my life back together.

I am NOW realising that thier is SO much that I need to do before I can get my life together. Before I placed all of the things that needed to be done aside - I never moved forward - just got money and spent it in previous employments. I have debts - debts that are causing bad credit - and it is going to be a long process to get myself to the point where I can even start to build credit - so that I can take on adult financial resopnsibilities and have a stable financial life. With outm a stable financial situation I will not be able to move forward in finding a healthy situation for myself. This is what is making me feel like I am not moving fast enough. The debts - when I had no paycheck - seem'd like no big deal. They would be put off. I convinced myself that a good job was the answer - and a job would solve all of my problems. I now realize that that is wrong. A job provides a resource yes - but there are other actions that need to be taken - and the resource that the job provides is limited. It only comes once every two weeks - and it will take me months (not so good with long term goals - so the thought of not being able to pay off the debts immeditially is scary - as i feel if it isin't done NOW it will never get done - so I might as well never try) or perhaps more then a year to pay those debts off. This is scary. To me this means I can't start my life for a whole year. Working twards something without immediate results isin't something that I have ever been very good at. When I was a kid things would be promised and then ripped away or put off never to come. I learned that waiting for anything means I will never get it.....so while I WILL be making a possitive impact on my life with slowly paying off these bills - it doesn't FEEL that way. I feel panic'd - pressured - all consumed with worry - over things which really I can't controol (except to the extend of which I can controol them which is only very little and very slowly) and make no sence.

GingerM

I'd like to take this moment to remind you that we are all human. Humans make mistakes. Think about anyone you know and imagine if they never ever once made a mistake - would you find them to be a little creepy? I would.

If you were "perfect", what would that look like to others? Speaking now as someone who is in a position to fire people, I can tell you that employees who are "perfect" are usually the ones covering up their mistakes. In other words, "perfect" employees make themselves suspicious in their perfection, and it's been my unfortunate experience that they are often the ones who end up being dismissed for whatever reasons.

Please to reread that last sentence. Yes. It is what you think I said. "Perfect" employees end up getting fired much more often than imperfect ones. Because nobody is perfect. There are employees who take ownership of their mistakes and those who cover up their mistakes. There is no such thing as a 'perfect' employee.

If you can reframe the "perfect employee" thing, a lot of pressure will be let up from you, and you will be LESS likely to have problems with work. Remind yourself that you are human, that humans make mistakes, take ownership of your mistakes and do what you can to fix them.

When I train a new employee I give a little speech that goes something like this: in my line of work, I can only teach so much before the person has to start doing. After I have given them every bit of technical knowledge I can, it is then their job to start making mistakes. Only by making mistakes will they learn. I can't teach them mistakes, I can only teach them how to correct the mistake. So the sooner they make mistakes, and the more mistakes they make, the faster they will learn. My motto when they do start making mistakes is "fail faster!". I use it as a pep speech. Seriously. The faster they fail, the faster they learn, the sooner they're independent of me. The only time I see mistakes as a detriment is if the person makes the same exact mistake repeatedly (showing me that they are not learning from their mistakes).

So you go right out there on Tuesday and Fail Faster! Remember that perfect people are creepy, and humans will err, and the faster we learn how to correct errors, the faster we become good at what we're doing.

Peter

You are pressuring yourself far more than anybody else is pressuring you right now. Try and forget about moving into a new apartment and your credit cards and just focus more on settling into your job.

Do the next right thing.The rest will take care of itself.

Mlynn

Well, turns out my anxiety was unfounded. I don't know why I was having anxiety about work over my long vacation. I really don't know. I guess it just might have something to do with my childhood experiences (good things never last - the bottom always drops out) that made me go into panic mode (I also suffer from some PTSD) at the very first sign of "attachment" to my job. My life went like this - anything I loved/liked never lasted - it would always go away - and I would be left to grieve and mourne the loss until every emotion I had was numbed. I learned NOT to get attached to things to avoid the pain of inevidable loss. I *logically* understand that my response to "attachment"(ie liking my new job) is panic in anticipation of pain. Now I just have to figure out a way to "get over it" so I don't let these old patterns trump my progess thus far. Wish me luck...i'm going to need it .

Peter

Good luck Mlynn.

GingerM

Is it bad of me if I laughed when I read this? Oh man, the number of times I've said the same thing to myself about whatever my pet issue du jour is. Oy!

Good Luck to you Mlynn!